


On the Dock, Above the Waves

by beckettemory



Series: Leporidae lagomorpha [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Archie Leach is a Bad Father, Eliot is still using his birth name (Danny Gillespie), First Meetings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not essential to the rest of the series, Platonic Relationships, Prologue, Technically in the Pacific Rim universe but pre-k-day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 12:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13213365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckettemory/pseuds/beckettemory
Summary: Before K-Day, before the world built giant robots to fight the hurricane, before Sophie Devereaux ran a network of thieves looting from disaster areas, there were two problem children in a small town in Oklahoma. Eliot was twelve and still Danny. Parker was ten.Parker stole Danny's thinking spot, and as payback Danny stole Parker's trust.And the lake below moved with the tides.





	On the Dock, Above the Waves

**Author's Note:**

> warnings in this fic for: child abuse (referenced and discussed, never shown), coercive parenting (kind of kidnapping i guess?? also unwanted adoption), mention of parental death, mention of guns and being threatened with them, references to violent alcoholism, trauma reactions and dissociation, parental figures cutting hair as punishment, references to forced restraint and seclusion, mention of coercive medical and psychiatric treatment, foiled runaway attempts, mention of drugs (marijuana)

“You’re in my spot.” 

Parker squinted up at the person suddenly standing over her. The sun was behind him and she couldn’t see his face, but from his voice he was maybe twelve and his clothes screamed “small Southern town thrift store.” Lots of the kids in Anadarko wore clothes that screamed that. 

“Finders keepers,” Parker retorted lightly, turning front again and looking out over the lake, her feet dangling off the end of the dock. It was a couple feet down to the water, and she imagined slipping down into the chilly water to get away. She could. It would suck, but she could. 

“That ain’t how it works, kid,” the boy said, sounding irritable. 

“I’m not a kid,” Parker protested. 

“What are you, ten?” the boy asked, and Parker sniffed when he sat on the dock next to her. 

“Maybe,” she said, fully intending to stop talking to him soon. 

The boy squinted at her, and she snuck a peek at his face. He was tan and had these weirdly blue eyes that Parker accidentally made contact with, and she blinked hard and looked away, trying to rid herself of the discomfort of it. 

“You new?” 

Parker found herself answering despite having definitely decided to stop talking. “Maybe. Why do you wanna know?” 

The boy shrugged. “You took my spot, means you must’a needed a getaway, and I’m on board with anyone who comes to a place like this when it ain’t lake season or skating season.” He looked out over the water, his cheeks starting to get some color from the cold. “Bad family?” 

Parker blinked and pulled her feet up onto the dock. She couldn’t get to any words in time. 

“Thought so,” the kid said. He nudged Parker until she looked at him. “I’m Danny.” 

Parker debated with herself, studying Danny, and then looked towards the far shore. It wasn’t like any of the lakes she’d seen in her life. It was flat all around, no rocky cliffs or tall forests around it. Just some shrubs and tiny hills, but then flat as far as the eye could see. 

“Parker,” she said after a long silence. 

“Parker?” Danny asked incredulously. “That your first name or last name?” 

Parker shrugged and brushed a couple tiny pebbles off the dock. “Neither. Both. Whatever.” 

Danny didn’t say anything, and Parker couldn’t tell if he was weirded out or what. He was looking out over the water too when she glanced at him, hoping to use her Reading People Skills on him, but his face stayed incomprehensible. 

“Who you livin’ with?” Danny asked after a while. 

Parker stiffened, not sure how to explain her strange home situation. She finally settled on something. 

“I’m kinda a foster kid,” she said. 

“Why ‘kinda’?” 

“You ask a lot of questions.” 

“Why ‘kinda’?” Danny asked again, his inflection exactly the same, like he was a tape recorder and had been rewound. 

Parker huffed and stood, then briskly walked away from Danny and the lake, heading back to the bike she’d stolen to get out there. 

“This is still my spot,” Danny called after her.

 

* * *

 

It was another two weeks before Danny saw Parker again. She apparently wasn’t a student at his school, so he just looked out for her whenever he went to the lake, always half expecting her to be there. 

Two weeks and a day after Danny met Parker, he biked down to the lake late at night, in dire need of some quiet time without his father’s snoring and his brother’s tossing and turning on the top bunk. Danny had been hit that evening, just before dinner. His father wasn’t happy about the elective he picked for after winter break--choir--and had given him a piece of his mind. He wouldn’t have a bruise tomorrow; his father was careful when school was in session. 

As he biked down the dirt path to the dock, he passed a shiny pink bike hidden in a bush just out of sight around a hairpin turn. He kept going, thinking it belonged to one of the families renting the log cabins along the lake shore, but when he got to the dock he saw a kid with a head full of blonde tangles down at the end. He dropped his bike and let his footfalls make noise as he walked up so he wouldn’t startle her. 

Parker jumped anyway, whipping her head around and squinting to see past Danny’s flashlight beam. She braced herself like she was about to slide off the end of the dock into the water, and Danny called out to her before she could. 

“Parker,” he said quietly, stopping in his tracks about halfway down the dock. “Just me.” 

He clicked off his flashlight and Parker stared, letting her eyes adjust, but when recognition dawned over her face she didn’t relax. 

“Danny,” she said slowly, like she wasn’t quite sure of the right name. 

“Yep.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

Danny shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.” 

“Me neither,” Parker said. 

“Can I sit?” 

Parker nodded, but didn’t relax her posture as Danny walked the rest of the dock and sat at the edge, a couple of feet between them. 

Danny looked out over the water. There wasn’t much nearby; no town within sight on the other side of the lake, and only a couple of occupied cabins giving off any light whatsoever. It could have been solid, flat ground for all they could see. The lake was there, though, sure enough, and he could hear the faint waves hitting the pillars supporting the walkway. 

Parker finally relaxed after a couple of minutes of silence.

“I like night time,” she said quietly. 

“Me too,” Danny said. 

“During the day it’s just so bright and loud and I don’t like people looking at me and they always do in the daytime,” Parker rambled in one breath, and then abruptly stopped talking, almost like she was trying not to babble, but she sounded sure of herself like she’d gotten in everything she wanted to say. What a weird way to talk. 

“Where are you from?” Danny asked before he could stop himself. 

Parker, though, didn’t seem to find the question weird. “Lots of places,” she said. “Kansas, Ohio, Colorado. Once I lived in Maine.” 

Those places were pretty normal, Danny thought. Maybe people in Ohio just talked funny. 

“Doesn’t the foster system keep you in one state?” Danny asked. “How’d you live in so many places?” 

Parker smirked. “I ran away a couple times.” 

Danny’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” 

“It’s not hard,” Parker said with a sniff. “Most grownups are dumb.” 

“So you live all by yourself?” 

Parker’s mischievous smile dropped into a scowl abruptly. “No. Now I live with Archie.” 

“Who’s Archie?” Danny asked. The name sounded familiar. 

“Archie Leach,” Parker said, like the name tasted bad. 

“The guy on the billboards,” Danny said, finally remembering. 

Parker nodded slowly. “The county district attorney candidate.” 

“Yeesh.” 

Parker hesitated. “He’s not really a lawyer,” she revealed. 

“No?” 

“He’s a thief,” Parker said. 

“What do you mean?” 

Parker shrugged and made a face like it was obvious. “He steals stuff. Jewels. Money. Art.” 

Danny blinked in surprise. A real thief. 

“I’m a thief, too,” Parker said, and she sounded very proud of that fact. 

“You’re ten,” Danny said. 

“I’ve been picking locks and stealing wallets since I was four,” Parker said defensively. “Archie caught me lifting his wallet in Cleveland. He said he would turn me in if I didn’t let him teach me.” 

“That’s not real,” Danny said. 

“It is too!” 

“No grownup would teach a kid how to be a thief.” 

“Archie would. He did,” Parker said, getting angry. “And I can’t leave or I would be in New York right now.” 

“You snuck down here to the lake,” Danny pointed out. “How come you can’t leave forever?” 

Parker’s face was a steadily growing scowl. “Because he would find me and turn me in.” 

Danny gave up. He frowned at what he could see of the far shore, letting the waves below them soften Parker’s frustration. 

“How come you don’t leave?” Parker asked after a minute or two. 

“I got siblings,” Danny said. “No one’s sticking up for them ‘cept me.” 

“Are your parents…?” 

“Yeah,” Danny said, not needing her to finish the sentence. “My mom died a long time ago and we’re stuck at my dad’s now.” 

“Ew,” Parker said shortly. 

“I’m gonna leave someday,” Danny said. “Just pack a bag in the middle of the night and get outta here.” 

“Where would you go?” 

Danny shrugged. “Anywhere.” 

“When you do, I’m coming with you,” Parker said, her tone not leaving any room for argument. 

Danny laughed. “You’re alright, kid.”

 

* * *

 

In the weeks that followed Danny and Parker hung out a few times, never on purpose. One of them would show up at the dock and occasionally find the other sitting there, at any time of day. After the temperature dropped below freezing and the lake started to freeze over their visits got shorter, with more days between them. 

Danny pulled more information out of Parker about her life, and she pried details about his family and school out of him, always with an air like she was looking for something to use against him. 

Parker was a weirdo. Danny’s friends at school would probably make fun of her if they ever met, but then again, they made fun of most kids around them, including each other. Danny kind of liked how weird she was. It made for interesting conversations, and he didn’t feel like he had to pretend around her. 

Parker liked tiny, cramped, dark places, and was jumpy all of the time. She was only in fifth grade but she was teaching herself calculus. She never talked about other people, and Danny guessed she’d never really had any friends. She always showed up at the dock on a different bike. Sometimes she went whole afternoons at the dock without saying a single word, but having conversations with Danny nevertheless, reacting with sounds and facial expressions. She didn’t make eye contact. She always had lockpicks in her pocket and an extra set tucked under the insole of her shoes and a couple of bobby pins stuck haphazardly in her messy hair. It seemed like she never brushed her hair out, but it never got matted or smelly. One day she showed up with a hoodie pocket stuffed with candy and when pressed she revealed that she’d stolen it all from the Phillips 66. She wore all black and all her shoes had special soles to make them quieter. She never wore anything warmer than a thick sweater and brushed Danny off every time he tried to give her his jacket. 

Parker still wasn’t sure about Danny. He was nice and hadn’t tattled on her, but he was  _ nice _ and people just weren’t nice unless they wanted something from you or wanted you to lower your guard. Still, he told her secrets about his family, and people didn’t do that if they were going to hurt you, in Parker’s experience. He told about how his dad kept a bunch of unregistered guns in the house and sometimes pulled them out when he was drunk. About how his stepmom openly disliked his brother Seth for no reason. About how his big sister was the smartest of all five of them and wanted to be a teacher. About how he had a new baby brother and it was making his dad even crankier. About how he sometimes just made up football practice after school to keep from having to go home. About how sometimes he wasn’t allowed to even do his homework until his dad and stepmom were both home so he could watch his younger brothers and sister. 

When school got out for winter break Parker disappeared. Danny looked for her every time he went to the dock, and even snuck out of his house a few more times late at night or early in the morning. He even took to walking up and down the shore, checking all the other docks on that side of the lake, just in case she started going to another one. 

He didn’t see her for weeks, until school started again after New Years’. He’d half given up on her. And then one day he rode up to the dock after school, the snow melting in the unseasonably warm afternoon sun, intending to sit on the dock and start reading  _ The Giver _ for his English class, and saw a small figure there at the end of the walkway. 

Danny was relieved, and a little surprised about that--when had he started to care? 

Parker didn’t move as he walked up, even though he made sure his steps were loud enough for her to hear. When he got close he saw that her hair was much shorter, and almost neatly combed, just a few tangles settling into her blonde hair, far fewer than he’d ever seen in her hair. 

“Hey,” Danny said when he got to the end of the dock. Parker was staring blankly out over the frozen lake, but when he spoke she blinked and looked up at him. 

“Hi,” she said, her voice distant. 

Danny’s brow furrowed and he sat, trying to give Parker a once-over. She sat with her ankles crossed hanging off the dock, and her hands were folded and resting in her lap. And she was wearing a light blue shirt, not black or grey like every other time he’d seen her. “Where you been?” he asked. 

Parker shrugged and looked back out over the ice. “We went away for break,” she said simply. 

“Where?” Danny asked, a strange unease sitting in the pit of his stomach. 

Parker shrugged again. “I don’t really remember.” 

Danny frowned. “Are you okay?” 

Parker hummed neutrally and didn’t answer. 

Danny sat, trying to think of a good way to cheer her up, but nothing was coming to him. So he just sat back and started reading. Less than one chapter in, he had a thought, and closed his book. 

“Steal anything good over break?” he asked. 

Parker seemed to thaw just the tiniest bit. “The Regent Diamond,” she whispered, the smallest hint of a smile on her face. “All by myself.” 

“What’s that?” Danny asked. 

Parker turned slightly on the dock, pulling one leg under her. “A big diamond,” she said. “141 carats. Cushion cut. A bunch of French kings owned it.” 

“How much is it worth?” 

Parker shrugged. “We don’t really sell the things we steal.” 

“Then why steal them?” Danny asked. 

“To steal them,” Parker said, like the answer was obvious. 

Danny scoffed. “Whatever.” 

Parker giggled and Danny felt relieved again. He went back to his book, leaving Parker to sit quietly for a while, but a few minutes later his curiosity got the best of him. 

“What happened?” he asked quietly. 

Parker looked confused for a second, and then when she realized what he meant she shut down. Her face shuttered and she turned back towards the far shore. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she said, her voice quiet and deathly serious. 

“It might help,” Danny said. 

Parker didn’t speak, and Danny went back to his book, chastened. 

“I messed up big time and got in trouble with Archie,” Parker said quietly, almost ten minutes later. “He cut my hair.” 

“What did you do?” Danny asked. 

Parker stared blankly out at the water for a long moment, then blinked. All at once she stood and bolted up the dock, grabbed the bike hidden in the bushes, and rode off at a sprint. 

Danny considered going after her, but knew he’d never catch up. He just stared after her, wondering what he’d done wrong.

 

* * *

 

The next time Danny saw Parker, a couple days later, she was fine. She was her same guarded, hyperactive, thieving self, and she wore black again. 

“This is Bunny,” she said after scrutinizing Danny for a long time. She pulled her stuffed rabbit out of her bag and held him out, wondering if Danny knew the gravity of what was happening. 

Danny looked unsure for a long moment, then carefully took Bunny. He studied him for a few seconds, then turned him around in his hands. 

“What’s he… do?” he asked. 

Parker took back Bunny in a huff. “He’s just a stuffed animal, you egg.” 

Parker was pretty sure the face Danny was making was ‘amused.’

“Knowing you, I was pretty sure he was a secret taser or shot BBs or somethin’,” he said. 

Parker hummed and studied Bunny. “I  _ could  _ put a taser in him,” she said. 

Danny laughed. 

Parker squinted at Danny, trying to decide if she wanted to make herself vulnerable again. Her lapse in control the other day had ended up fine, but surely a second time would be disastrous. 

She couldn’t justify staying guarded, not even to herself. She trusted Danny, she thought, and that never happened. 

She sighed and pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it over. 

“That’s Archie’s phone number. It’s a cell phone and the only phone we have,” she said. 

Danny looked surprised. “Why’re you giving this to me?” he asked. 

Parker shrugged. “In case you wanna hang out. You know. Not on the dock?” 

Danny looked around. “I like the dock,” he said. 

Parker snorted. “It’s fine. But sometimes I wanna talk to you and not go outside. Sometimes...” she bit her lip and looked away. “Sometimes Archie doesn’t let me leave.”  

“Fine,” Danny said, and he dug around in his backpack until he found a pencil and tore a small piece of paper out of his notebook. He scribbled down a number. 

“That’s our home phone,” he said. “I don’t have a cell phone yet.” 

Parker read the number over a few times, quickly memorizing it. “We need a code,” she said. 

“Huh?” 

“For when we call each other. So we know it’s safe,” Parker explained impatiently. Really, it was obvious. 

Danny nodded slowly. “What kinda code?” 

Parker hummed. “How about… when we call each other, we don’t say anything at first, and then I say one thing, and you say another thing in response?” 

“What if I call you?” 

“Then you say the first thing,” Parker said. 

“What thing?” 

Parker hummed. She looked around at the dock, the little shack a dozen yards away where nets and life jackets were stored, the trees and bushes shielding the dock from the road, and the far shore. Eventually her gaze landed on their own things, and she picked up Bunny. 

“Leporidae,” she said. 

“Huh?” 

Parker held up Bunny in explanation. “Leporidae?” Danny just stared blankly. “The scientific word for the family of rabbits and hares?” 

“A rabbit family is called leopard-day?” Danny asked dumbly, looking ‘confused.’ 

Parker rolled her eyes.  _ “No.  _ You know how in biology scientists organize animals by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species?” 

Danny stared blankly, and then shook his head no. 

Parker made a noise in her throat that meant she was annoyed. “Well, they do. It’s like a family tree except each tier is a different umbrella category for dividing up animals. And the level ‘family’ has a family for all kinds of rabbits and hares, and it’s called leporidae.” 

Danny nodded, and the look on his face made Parker think he maybe understood. 

“And then the response word could be ‘lagomorpha,’” Parker said happily. 

Danny’s face went blank again. 

Parker groaned. “That’s the  _ order  _ that leporidae belongs to,’ she explained slowly. “It’s a step above family.” 

Danny looked lost. “Okay,” he said. 

Parker sighed, rearranged herself, and talked with her hands. “So you call me, I answer without saying anything. You say ‘leporidae’ to tell me it’s you, and I say ‘lagomorpha’ to tell you it’s me.” 

“What if someone else answers?” Danny asked. 

“Then they’ll say ‘hello’ and we’ll know it’s not each other,” Parker said slowly. 

“...Right.” 

Parker nodded decisively. “We have a code,” she said. She snapped her fingers. “We should have a secret handshake, too.” 

Danny groaned. “No,” he said firmly, and Parker exclaimed indignantly before she could stop herself.

 

* * *

 

“I'm starting judo next month,” Danny said, leaning back on the dock and soaking up every bit of the spring warmth he could.

“I wanna do that,” Parker said, sounding both awed and envious. 

“Class is coed and mixed age. You could,” Danny offered. 

“It’s not in Anadarko,” Parker said, unsure if it was a question. 

Danny nodded. “It is. Dojo opening on Oklahoma, down by the library.” 

Parker hummed. “I could take Archie’s credit cards and sign myself up,” she said, sounding a little like she was talking to herself. 

Danny shrugged. “He might be okay with you learning self defense. Could be a peace-of-mind thing for him.” 

Parker scowled. “No,” she said. “It would just mean more effort for him.” 

“To what?” Danny asked. A moment later his brain caught up and he looked at Parker to see her glaring bitterly out across the water. 

“To ‘restrain’ me,” Parker spat. “When I get difficult.” 

Danny growled before he could stop himself. Archie didn't come up in conversation very often, but every time he did Danny grew to hate him more. 

“Hate that,” he said. 

Parker shrugged as though resigned to her terrible home life. “I'm a problem child,” she said simply. “I always have been.” 

Danny sighed. “Me too. But look at us,” he said, and gestured widely. “Two problem children, hanging out without adult supervision, not breaking any laws at all.” 

Parker looked guilty and plucked at a loose thread on her sleeve. 

“What’d you steal,” Danny asked, not even a little surprised at this point. 

Parker dropped her guilty look and grinned, then dug through her backpack and came up with a handful of unopened packages of Pokemon cards. 

Danny laughed and snatched one. 

“Hey!” Parker cried. 

Danny held the pouch just out of her reach. “You did all the law breaking, I want to steal, too.”

 

* * *

 

Parker and Danny rose through the judo ranks faster than anyone else in their class, and their sensei had no idea why. He thought maybe they were getting tutored by a relative in between classes, but that wasn’t quite the case. 

Once Parker had started in Danny’s class, they began using the dock not only as a hangout spot, but as a good place to spar and review what they’d learned. Parker had all the speed and agility of a cat burglar, and Danny had strength that was growing by the day as he hit a growth spurt. They were well matched, and after just a few short weeks Sensei stopped letting them spar with each other in class; they would go off book, their fighting style changing to something that wasn't quite judo, but more collaborative, working with each other instead of against each other. 

Danny saw Parker get more and more confident, and she seemed to fear Archie a little less every day as she learned more ways to defend herself. She started bringing her homework to the dock. Danny hadn’t even realized she had homework; she never talked about school and never seemed to learn anything academic she didn’t teach herself. But as her fear of Archie dimmed, she started spending more time out of the house, no longer worrying she’d get in big trouble for not coming straight home after school. 

On weekends, as the weather got warmer, they spent most of the daylight hours out on the dock, doing homework or reading or sparring or talking. Sometimes Parker came to the dock wearing workout gear and started flipping all over the place, walking on her hands and doing handstand pushups on the edge of the dock and using the low-hanging branches of trees around the lake as pretend lasers to avoid. She tried to teach Danny how to do her freaky contortionist acrobat stuff, but he refused, instead choosing to do his own conditioning--push-ups, pull-ups from tree branches, jogging, carrying big rocks, and however else he could think to build up some much-needed muscle and endurance. 

They were turning themselves into weapons, Danny thought. Just in case. Just in case. 

One day, though, the fight drained out of Parker. 

Danny showed up to the dock at their usual time, and Parker sat in the middle of the walkway, not even at the end so she could dangle her feet off the edge. She usually sat with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms tight around them when she didn't dangle her feet, but today she sat crisscross applesauce, her hands resting lightly on her knees. 

“What's up?” Danny asked lightly, dropping his bike in the dirt at the end of the walkway. He didn't worry about his bike getting stolen anymore. If that happened Parker could get it back in about 20 minutes, and most kids in town had learned not to cross her. 

Parker shrugged and didn't look up as Danny joined her. 

“Everything okay?” he asked quietly. 

Parker sighed. “I'm going to be a Leach.” 

“What?” 

Parker looked at him and her eyes seemed dead. “Archie’s adopting me.” 

Danny’s heart sank. He'd long been bracing himself for the day Parker was rid of Archie for good, however that happened. He hadn't prepared himself for Archie to make it official; the whole air he seemed to give was that he was doing right by a motherless child but would at some point pass her off to some other foster home. Danny had been preparing for  _ that.  _

“Oh,” he said helplessly. “I'm sorry.” 

Parker shrugged again. “He's going to be my dad. I'm going to be Anna Leach.” 

“Anna?” Danny asked, furrowing his brow. “Who the hell’s Anna?” 

Parker gestured to herself. “It’s my real name.” 

Danny rolled his eyes. “Might be on your birth certificate, but it ain't your ‘real’ name.” He paused. “What are you going to do?” 

“Nothing to be done,” Parker said sadly. “It’s happening whether I want it to or not.” 

Danny made a frustrated noise. “Nothing to be done?” 

Parker looked exasperated and then spoke slowly like Danny was an idiot. “I can't go anywhere. Running away means a new home if you're a foster kid, but if you have  _ parents…”  _

Danny snorted. “You can still run away. Just as long as you don't get caught.” 

Parker lay back on the dock and flopped over onto her stomach so Danny couldn't see her face. “I always get caught, though. Ten year olds by themselves get spotted.  _ Autistic _ ten year olds get the cops called, psych evaluations, new therapy prescribed, and back in the foster system, always.” 

Danny didn't need to ask how she knew all that. 

An idea dawned on him slowly, and he nudged Parker urgently until she sat up with a huff, trying to hide red eyes. 

“We could go together,” he said. “We look enough alike, we could be brother and sister. I got some cash stowed away, we could get bus tickets, say we’re visiting grandparents, go anywhere we want.” 

“What would we do?” Parker asked, not on board quite yet. 

Danny shrugged. “Anything. Steal stuff and sell it. Join the circus, anything we want.” 

“Where would we live? What about school? You can't quit school,” she said. 

Danny bit his lip, thinking. He hadn't thought that far ahead. He chose not to comment on her not including herself in the statement about finishing school. 

“There's street schools in most big cities,” Parker said thoughtfully, answering her own question in a mumble. “If we got in with the car thieves they might let us stay with them.” She looked up at Danny, her eyes finally getting some spark back. “When can we leave?” 

Danny blew out a breath, trying to think through everything they'd need to do to prepare. “When is the adoption going through?” 

Parker scowled. “He filed the paperwork two days ago. Didn't tell me anything until today so I couldn't talk him out of it.” 

“Then we’d need to leave soon, before it’s finalized.” 

“Tomorrow?” Parker asked eagerly. 

Danny thought for a long moment. He’d have to pack, steal some more money, sneak out, and do it all without arousing suspicion. He had no doubt Parker could, but he had siblings to worry about.

“If we pretended to go to school tomorrow but met here instead, it would be best,” he said. 

Parker clapped excitedly. “I'll figure out where we’re going and meet you here at nine tomorrow morning.” 

She jumped up and started down the dock. 

“Keep the phone on you tonight,” Danny called after her. “Just in case.” 

“Yeah!”

 

* * *

 

Parker was debating which of two black shirts to pack when she felt Archie’s cell phone vibrate, tucked into her sock where it wouldn't make much noise. She quickly slid down the banister and crept out the side door in the kitchen, making her way to the tree in the backyard she'd come to think of as the Talking Tree; Archie couldn't hear her anywhere in the house if she talked at a normal volume sitting in its branches. 

She flipped the phone open and tucked it between her shoulder and ear as she climbed up, waiting for the person on the other end to speak. 

There was a long pause and Parker settled herself into a little dip in one thick branch about eight feet off the ground. 

_ “Leporidae,”  _ Danny whispered. 

“Lagomorpha,” Parker replied. 

_ “Meet me at our place in half an hour,”  _ Danny said. 

Parker didn't ask for more information. Their lines of communication weren't very secure. They never even said where exactly they would meet, just in case. 

“I'll be there,” Parker promised, and hung up. She slipped out of the tree and crept back into the house and up the stairs. 

When she rolled up to the dock exactly half an hour later, her backpack ready to go, she saw Danny sitting in the middle of the walkway, facing the water. She saw his bike, but no bags anywhere. 

“I thought we were leaving early,” Parker said as she walked up to him. 

“No,” Danny said simply, and stood up  he had some kind of expression on his face Parker didn't understand, but it didn't look good. 

“We’ll wait until the morning, then,” Parker said, unshouldering her bag and letting it drop to the ground. 

Danny grimaced. “I'm not going, Park,” he said. 

Parker stared at him, not understanding what he was saying. “What?” 

“I'm not going,” he repeated. “I'm sorry.” 

Parker’s gut twisted in anger. “Why?” 

“My siblings,” Danny said. “They can't protect themselves. I gotta keep ‘em safe.” 

Parker’s anger tempered a little. It didn't go away, but it… changed. Burned faster, not hotter. “You don't get it,” she spat. “Archie is  _ adopting me.  _ I can't stay here.” 

Danny hung his head. “I know. I'm sorry. I'll help you get out, but I gotta stay here,” he said to the ground. 

“No.” Parker picked her bag back up and slung it onto her shoulders. “Forget it. I don't want your help.” 

“Parker!” he cried after her. 

“I thought you had my back,” she yelled, whirling on him. “I thought you were different from all my old friends. But you just care about yourself.” 

“That's not true, Park--” 

“Leave me alone!” Parker screamed, and stormed off. “See you never,” she yelled over her shoulder. She picked up a bike at random and it was only as she was riding off did she realize that it was Danny’s. Well. Served him right. 

She rode straight into town and into a parking lot at random. If she stole a car here it would only take half an hour to drive to the bus station in Chickasha, putting her there by two in the morning. Then it would be simple to steal enough cash for a ticket anywhere and she'd leave by the time Archie woke up. 

Screw Danny. She didn't need him. She’d been on her own before.

 

* * *

 

Danny heard all about the search for Parker through his stepmother’s car radio the next afternoon on their way to the dentist. He prayed for her safety but refused to let himself feel guilty. Just this morning he’d pulled a bully off Seth. If Danny wasn't around, who would keep him safe? 

By the time they left the dentist, though, all talk of the search was gone, replaced by regular weather and music, and only at the news break did the station repeat the update: Parker had been found, on a Greyhound bound for Chicago as it stopped in St. Louis. 

Danny’s heart sank and his palms got sweaty. Parker would be in huge trouble, and Archie would use the incident as ammo for his adoption case. Danny didn't know how, but he knew Archie was smart and would find some way to spin it in his favor. 

He went to the dock that night and stayed for hours waiting for her. Finally he left and tried to call Archie’s cell phone, but hung up when Archie answered. 

The next day he skipped school and waited all day at the dock. She never showed, and she missed judo that night.  

Finally, almost a week later, he went to the dock after school and saw her sitting alone at the edge.

“Parker,” he said, stopping several feet back. 

“Go away,” she said quietly, her voice flat. 

Danny closed the distance and dropped to sit next to her. Before she could react he hugged her hard and she stiffened. 

“I was so worried,” he said, his voice muffled by her shoulder. 

Parker shoved him off almost hard enough to push him into the water. 

“I survived,” she said bitterly. “You don't care about anything else.” 

Danny let out a difficult breath. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I shoulda gone with you.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Are you okay?” 

Parker glared at him. “No,” she said, and turned away. 

“I'm sorry.” 

“You should be.” 

“When my siblings can hold their own, we’ll run off,” Danny promised. “And we won't come back.” 

Parker stayed quiet. 

Danny sat back, ready to wait this out and convince her that he wouldn't abandon her again. 

It was weeks before they had a real conversation again, but Parker kept showing up at the dock at all hours, so Danny gathered that their friendship wasn't broken forever. But only time would really tell.

 

* * *

 

“My new number,” Danny said, handing over a slip of paper with his own cell phone number on it.

“Now you have that,” Parker said, memorizing the number, “we can steal stuff easier.” 

“Sure.” 

Danny had gotten the phone for his fifteenth birthday. It was only his stepmother’s beat up old flip phone, but it would make getting ahold of Parker much simpler. 

“Let's practice,” Parker said, gesturing to the row of sailboats nearby. The people who ran the lake had put in boat slips next to Danny and Parker’s hangout spot a year before, and it had really helped them save up for when they eventually ran away together. All those expensive boats owned by rich people who left behind valuables when they visited three times a year. 

“You get the locks, I'll get the camera,” Danny said, already heading for the new security camera installed to watch over the hodgepodge fleet. 

Parker laughed as she easily picked the cabin lock of a small, but lavish sailboat. They wouldn't get caught; no one came to the boat dock in late October. 

“Wait for me,” Danny called as he jogged over. He now understood why Parker loved stealing; he got a thrill every time he entered a room and knew he’d walk out with  _ something  _ he hadn't walked in with. 

“When we run away we should buy a houseboat,” Parker said, disappearing into the cabin. “And just float out into international waters and stay there except when we need to steal something.” 

“You want to be pirates,” Danny said. 

“Yarr,” Parker said, closing one eye and holding up her first finger in a little hook. 

“If we sail in international waters can we be extradited?” Danny asked as he started rifling through the small storage bins tucked into a built-in bookshelf. 

“I don't think so,” Parker said. 

“We’d need to learn how to sail,” Danny warned. 

“I know how,” Parker said. 

“What?” 

Parker flashed a grin at Danny. “I read a lot.” 

Danny rolled his eyes. 

“Aha!” Parker exclaimed, holding up a book. She shook it and they heard rattling. Inside the cover was a secret compartment full of weed and a handful of diamond earrings and wedding rings. 

“Nice,” Danny said. 

“What's this?” Parker asked, holding up the baggie of weed. 

Danny snorted. “You'll find out when you're older.” 

Parker dumped the contents of the secret compartment onto the table next to her and threw the book at Danny. 

“Ow!” 


End file.
